In the "Author's Note" at the beginning of Prelude to Foundation*, Asimov says that when he wrote "Foundation", which appeared
in the May 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, he had no idea that he had begun a series of stories that would eventually
grow into seven volumes and a total of approximately 700,000 words. Nor did he have any idea that it would be unified with
his stories involving robots and the Galactic Empire for a grand total of 15 volumes and about 1,500,000 words.

If you look at the publication dates of these books, you might notice that there was a 25 year hiatus between 1957 and 1982,
during which he did not add to the series (though he did continue to be prolific). Regardless, by the time he wrote Prelude
to Foundation in 1988, the situation had become sufficiently complicated for Asimov to feel the readers might welcome akind
of guide to the series, since they were not written in the order in which (perhaps) they should be read.

The 15 books offer a kind of history of the distant future, which is, perhaps, not completely consistant, since he did not
plan consistency to begin with. In my humble opinion, Asimov did a wonderful job and was sufficiently vague and cryptic when
integrating his series together. Indeed, I feel that it's almost better this way because each book has its own unique story
which fits into a place in the story of its series; then behind everything is an all-encompassing story whose tentacles extend
even beyond the series. A bit mindblowing.

I recommend reading the series in its proper chronological order, which is outlined below:

* - The introduction of this page is basically a bastardized version of the author's note from Prelude to Foundation. I
added Forward the Foundation to the list and offered some of my thoughts towards the end there...